Critical Thinking Archives

Place Value Game: Fun and Engaging Way to Teach the Power of Numbers

SVG Image Map Example We are so excited to share our top tips about how to get your students excited about Place Value. We are

Making Your Own Connections Game: A Fun Classroom Innovation

Every morning, I have a ritual that kickstarts my brain and sets the tone for the day: diving into the New York Times Connections game.

5 Main Ideas to Teach Main Idea in Elementary

It may seem silly to read about ideas to help you teach main idea! It seems like such a simple… well… idea! But, even though

how can I make teaching vocabulary fun for my students

5 Fun and Effective Ways to Teach Test-Taking Vocabulary

The standardized testing season will be here before you know it. Whether this time of year excites you or frightens you, it’s time to prepare

How to teach critical thinking to my students

5 Easy Strategies for Developing Critical Thinkers

We’re excited to have Sydney from Love, Laugh, Teach guest posting for us today! Her post includes helpful insight and advice for developing critical thinkers

It's extremely important to select high-quality close reading passages for your students. There are a variety of factors involved, including appropriateness for students, quality of writing, and the questions and answers included. Click through to read my guide for selecting high-quality close reading passages.

How to Select High-Quality Close Reading Passages for Your Students

As you probably know, there are many passages available that claim to be ideal for close reading and reading comprehension. Many are in published books.

Growth mindset is a hot topic in the education field these days, but some teachers aren't sure how to teach about it. Our guest blogger shares six steps to instilling a growth mindset in your students. These are based off of her research about growth mindset and Carol Dweck's studies.

6 Steps to Instilling a Growth Mindset in Your Students

After sixteen years teaching high school English, I left the classroom to follow a dream and move with my family to a rural ecovillage. Since

Make Project-Based Learning Fit Your Students’ Needs

Please enjoy this guest post from Matt of Digital: Divide & Conquer. He’s sharing a lot of really excellent insight into making project-based learning work

Creative and Critical Thinking

My name is Hillary Kiser, and I have been teaching for seven years now. Rachel was so sweet to allow me to be a guest

Kids don't always understand how they should be thinking about what they learn in order to really analyze and understand the information. This post, which tells you how to make thinking visible, provides several fun activities that you can do with your class to help them better understand their learning. Click through to read the whole post!

Make Thinking Visible

Hey there! I’m Kathie from Tried and True Teaching Tools, and I am beyond excited to be guest blogging today at Rachel Lynette’s Minds in Bloom!

Questioning Strategies for Differentiation

10 Questioning Strategies to Differentiate Instruction

SVG Image Map Example Differentiating to Meet the Needs of Struggling Learners Questioning Strategies are here to help! Differentiating to meet the needs of struggling

It might seem impossible to add one more thing to your teaching agenda, but have you taught your students creative and critical thinking? Read this post for inspiration on how to teach these skills--and for insight on how these two types of thinking are different.

Teaching Students Creative and Critical Thinking

Life is full of adventures! You never know what wonderful twists or turns lie ahead. A few weeks ago, I had applied to be a guest

I bet you've never realized that you can find a lot for your classroom at a hardware store! Melissa from Got to Teach shares a super helpful list of all of the classroom supplies you can buy at your local hardware store.

Classroom Finds From the Hardware Store

Minds in Bloom is excited to present Melissa with her post on using items from the hardware store in the classroom! Enjoy! Aside form

Higher-level thinking is an important skill, no matter which model you employ in your classroom. This post outlines a variety of ways in which you can encourage your students to reach higher-level thinking and provides concrete examples based on Bloom's Taxonomy, the Wheel of Reasoning, and the Depth of Knowledge.

How to Encourage High-Level Thinking

Today we will be presented with fantastic ideas from Pam of Rockin Resources. She shares some effective techniques along with free samples from her Higher-Level